i would very much like to exorcise certain memories i would really very much like to delete things from my brain to remove them from my everything with extreme prejudice.
but would that mean that would mean that i did not have the lesson.
it hurts so fucking much because because you aren’t here for me to say sorry.
i hate being alone so much. i hate it hate it hateithateithateit quiet and alone and lonely and cold even in this heat cold. even in this heat the cold strangles my blood freezing it cold solid cold i shiver in this heat.
i could have stayed at yours but no. i am afraid. the rain, the dark, the aloneness. you held me in your arms you squeezed me closer felt the heat bloom from my body setting it afire holding me closer. i tangled my fingers in yours hoping to keep some of you for me when i go.
i sit in your kitchen, smoking vibrating in place i cant sit still inside i don’t know how i appear, manic, most likely i hate coming to you, needful, needy. i don’t think i ever feel pity from you, i don’t think (if i begin to think i won’t let go so lets just not)
i know i am not always like this i know that but right now i am very much like this and it is hard to be. much less be around.
The smallest things The smallest idea of a thing The possibility of a full fucking moon and a sky full of stars The next kiss The next kiss The next kiss The sun shining on my bed
typewritten 33 years ago. found in the attic at the last possible moment.
darkness — thick, oppressive congealing as if blood around an open breathing wound i am this the wound ed panic steers this two-ton beast not i racing racing heart racing through mazed streets dimly lit by infrequent lights sudden dip plunge headlong into wooded thick et cricket thicket surroundsound i turn up the radio to shut out the nature nature of this two-ton beast of steel racing heart racing.
I wrote this 33 years ago on the way home from somewhere/something stressful. My engagement party? I was less than a month away from turning 21.
I would have stopped to pull the car over to write this; wherever my first Filofax disappeared to, deep within its pockets lies a piece of looseleaf covered in my handwriting, tense and manic and completely out of control from the feel of it. This was about 6 months before I married my first ex-husband, The Sociopath. I hadn’t yet gotten anywhere close to the diagnosis I finally have, I mean I had finally gotten away from the schizophrenia misdiagnosis and was hovering somewhere in limbo, hinting around manic depression and clinical depression, but no one understood suicidality and ADHD back then, much less accounted for the PTSD I already had and would continue to have. I’m pretty sure by this point I had been put on Prozac which only helped to launch me fully into extreme mania.
The terror that I know that I was feeling that night, it is a familiar one. The time of year, well into the beginning of spring, added to the mania I know I was experiencing. Without understanding that this is how my body acts in spring, without any tools to help mitigate what would always be outside of my control, I can feel (finally, I think) really aware of just how much I have survived, and continue to survive.
I kept going when I had no proof of better times to come. I have that proof now.
I am that proof. My proof lives in me.
It always changes; it always shifts. It gets better and it gets worse and it gets better again. Gam zeh ya’avor / gam zu l’tovah. This too shall pass and it is all for the good. גם זה יעבור זה גם לטובה
It is need, now it is beyond want it is need I need to be out of my head taken out of my HEAD What better than weed and loud music and the dark Especially if I can stay home and have all three at once i need this to be louder more More louder glad I made it home. more more I need comforting I don’t think I am capable of being comforted need to scream need to be loud and that only ever hurts everyone do you see their faces afterwards they never quite look at you the same need someone to hear me. try making the music loud enough to drown out my brain I am glad there is no one else here Am I
this is so much.
I made it to the end of the day I made it I made it without losing everything and then why? I mean really Why thoughtless fucking fucking shit why.
once again, and again This, on top of everything else. Why? there is no why there is only keep going until you die
This is so much on top of so much on top of so much please.
I don’t want this I don’t want this it doesn’t help to say I don’t want this until I say it I don’t want this I don’t like this I don’t want this none of it thank you please stop
this late at night at this time of year there are some very dark stretches of route nine heading north to home so dark that i could turn off my headlights
and disappear
there are very few other cars no lights i could drift into nothingness brightness
then black. Nothing.
the road ahead opens its maw promising to swallow me whole. it could be done. Over.
your author, dressed for 29°F weather at 7a, sitting in the parking lot to medicate (description below)
It is currently 29°F outside, actual feel of 22°F. I am outside for my morning medication: today is cannabis and coffee. I’ve already taken my fish oil, but there’s no one to say anything about that if I take that in my kitchen. So I come outside after having dressed for the weather. This includes: underwear, thick socks, two pairs of flannel pajama bottoms, a long sleeved shirt over a short sleeved shirt, a fleece hoodie, my purple fuzzy robe with white stars, a knitted neck warmer, a knitted hat. I have spiked my coffee with hot cocoa mix and butter to make the warmth seem thicker and more long-lasting.
I have a medical marijuana card. Up until *very* recently, whole flower was not allowed to be sold in medical dispensaries. Smoking whole flower is the method of delivery that works best for me. If vaping worked for me, I could probably get away with vaping inside my apartment, although I really wouldn’t want to try. But it doesn’t. Smoking whole flower is what works. I no longer engage in practices that are meant to be good for me but in actuality, aren’t. Imagine if instead of taking your anti-anxiety meds by pill, you had to have them by suppository and you had to do that outside because that’s what the law dictated. Just because.
When it is colder than this, or when the weather is shit, or after dark (I feel like a D!sney princess out here sometimes, skunks ((Flower!)), raccoons, possums, cats, ALL the squirrels), I sit in the car. Even with the engine off, this is illegal to do. When I have zoom therapy and I am home I do it in my car or outside so that I can smoke. So that I can medicate. When I have zoom therapy and I’m at a friend’s house, I can be inside and warm and still medicate.
No other medication is subjected to restrictions and procedures like this. This is inhumane. Could you imagine if I told you you had to go outside for your heart medication if you weren’t well off enough to own your own home with private property? If I told you you had to take your cholesterol meds every morning but go outside somewhere on the street, what would happen?
And if I told you that unless you had the wherewithal, you couldn’t have a get-together with friends and have a smoke sesh. Have all the wine and cheese parties you want, every book club has its Bordeaux, every rehearsal dinner its Riesling, but no ma’am, you’re not allowed to enjoy this totally legal thing where you live, where you love, where you entertain. What would you do? What would you say?
People are going to consume where they are able to consume. Where they are forced to consume. This has always, and will continue to be what happens. By welcoming dispensaries and consumption lounges into Peekskill, by allowing smoking in specific areas of our many public parks, we are making our residents and visitors feel more comfortable and welcomed.
I have so much to say to you so much that, um, I just i keep thinking that
I keep wanting to
I just I just want to share with you. I just wanna tell you I just want you to see me now. I want i really
and I don’t think you would blame me for where I am. I don’t think anymore that you would blame me for where I am. Because I
depended on you so much
i depended on you so much and it just took everything away.
you’re gone.
and everything you did stopped with you.
There’s no one here. To see me doing fuck all.
There’s, there’s no one.
No one to report to.
There’s no one here.
There’s Mojo. He was real happy that I went to bed at 9:30 and fed him first and got into bed and he came right in with me. And we snuggled all night, got up around six or something for his medicine. And then went back to bed. Had like 10 hours of sleep sort of
what the fuck am I supposed to do now? what do I do now?
I mean, if I thought there was no way before and then there was but now it’s like everything is used up. I, i If I spend the money I have on the car, I will have nothing else. nothing. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.